SIE: Full speed ahead

Never had a roadblock loomed quite so large on the Staten Island Expressway, the traffic-choked route often derided as the “world’s longest parking lot.” A $75-million plan for the biggest overhaul of the expressway since it opened in 1964 was delayed and placed into jeopardy by a turf war between the city and state.

So it’s a relief to see that the way has been cleared after the unnecessary bout of bureaucratic stalling.

“This project will put the ‘express’ back into the expressway,” according to Rep. Michael McMahon, who helped to obtain over $50 million in federal funding that had been held hostage during needless bickering.

The expressway renovations are long overdue.

Part of Interstate 278, the 7.7-mile Staten Island Expressway is one of the busiest highways in New York City. It carries about 190,000 vehicles a day between the Goethals and Verrazano bridges.

As Islanders know only too well, traffic jams on the expressway are chronic. However, by 2013, when all of the extensive roadwork is to be completed, it’s expected that drivers will be able to maintain a rush-hour speed 45 mph.

What detoured a fast OK for the plan?

Federally funded transportation work of this sort needs the approval of the state and city Departments of Transportation, the Department of City Planning and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Only city DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan voted “no.”

She was upset because the state Transportation Department had been withholding $400 million in federal money designated for other projects in the city.

Mr. McMahon correctly faulted the commissioner as short-sighted for “playing a high-stakes game of chicken” that risked losing vital funds set aside for the expressway.

In a letter to Ms. Sadik-Khan that was signed by all of the borough’s electeds, the congressman wrote: ”All Staten Islanders have endured near constant travel delays and congestion on the SIE for far too long. But now that we have secured all the funding and finalized designs to improve traffic flow, it is just unconscionable that such an important project is being put at risk because of endless bureaucratic squabbling.”

Ultimately, the city DOT relented.

“I guess Congressman McMahon and I can now come in from the ledge,” said Mid-Island City Councilman James Oddo, who had worked closely with him in the effort to secure money for the SIE improvements.

Ground was broken last week for the first phase of the project, work to reconfigure eight on- and off-ramps along 1.8 miles between Clove Road and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge toll plaza. The ramps will move closer to key intersections, easing congestion on local roads.

Beyond this, work is to include extension of the bus/HOV lanes from Slosson Avenue almost to Victory Boulevard and the construction of fourth lanes in each direction along the highway between the Verrazano toll plaza and Bradley Avenue. It’s hoped, by the way, that this will put an end to the mysterious “Bradley Avenue backup” phenomenon in the Brooklyn-bound lanes.

The renovation project also calls for widening four overpasses, realigning and leveling a section of the Expressway in Sunnyside to remove the highway’s sharpest and steepest curves, and demolition of unused overpasses that would have connected to a planned section of highway through the Greenbelt that was never built.

Shame on the city for even hesitating to green light such obviously important and clearly necessary work.

With unemployment in the local construction industry about 30 percent, the Staten Island Expressway project will mean jobs for those in trades such as demolition, concrete, paving, steelwork and landscaping.

There is even good news at hand for harried motorists. Sort of. While construction goes on, all of the SIE’s travel lanes will be kept open during rush hours.